Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1870 edition. Excerpt: ... doors locked, and yet all alight! I must enter and find how this gross negligence of the rules has been perpetrated. The door creaks! even louder than the key did in the lock. I divide the sanctuary hangings before the door, and, 0 Heaven ! what a scene meets my sight! A brilliancy which has no need of such minor effects as gas, or daylight, lights, I might say, fires up the vast edifice, showing every rounded column and sculptural detail in their most vivid outlines. Above, below, around, sounds indescribable; the very air harmonious and yet so drear: the very atmosphere seems thick with existence! A congregation such as never before witnessed; not seats alone occupied, every space, and even the air, eloquent with life. Life, and yet what life? Such as I had never before witnessed, such as it is not given to mortals to understand! Forms I had known long since; Faces, whose outlines, once so familiar, seemed as the breaking in of a dream, so long absent had they been from my vision: none are the usual attendants of the Cathedral, not even inhabitants of the city, and yet they have been. Yes, "have been!" A light dawns upon me--these are those who " once were!" I am with the dead, the dead and yet alive! Am I one of them? When did I die? I cannot remember! All seems as awful as it is inexplicable. A form approaches--one quite recently taken from his post on earth, his post a sacred one and my chief. My Lord Bishop? Take back thine hand, mortal: the inhabitants of the tomb have done with familiar greetings. No longer either "My Lord Bishop," I am now spirit with spirit: you are to me only mortal--the representative of mortality! Spirit, then, Good Spirit, tell me where I am? why is this? who am I? Spirit alone, call me not Good Spirit!...
